Working on the Warrior movie (Part 2)

by Nicole Skeltys

Week two on the set of the Warrior movie

Last week, I brought down to the set of the Warrior movie a nice fat book called "Pennsylvania Spirituals" by Don Yoder (1961). I was working on Warrior as a full-time extra, my main duties consisting of cheering wildly as part of a large pretend audience to an MMA tournament set in Atlantic City.

My full-time status could have been more accurately described as a "total life elimination" status - an average of 15 hour days, 6 days a week on set - barely enough time left over to get home and get some sleep before the pre-dawn alarm shrieked my brain into consciousness again. This was followed minutes later by a run down Butler St to catch the extras' shuttle which hurtled from the Strip district to the Petersen Events Center, a half hour wait in line to be issued with my payroll slip, then collapsing in the corner of the 'dressing room' (a bit of floor draped with curtains) waiting to be called down to the ring-side for the day's screaming duties. Most of an extra's time consists of just sitting/lying around, waiting for shots to be re-set, so I had ample opportunity to read five books last week, which I counted as a perk of an otherwise totally perkless job.

In between the "spritzing" of fighters (spraying them with water to simulate sweat), fake tattoo touch-ups and lots of rehearsals (to get, for example, the exact right velocity of a mouth guard being spat from the mouth in response to a fist being smashed into said orifice), myself and many other extras quietly read our books.

I started week two with Yoder's book, which began by suggesting Pennsylvania has a much more interesting influence on Americana music history than I suspect even most Americans would realise. Yoder explores his idea that "the Negro Spiritual and the Pennsylvania Spiritual..are twin sisters, developing side by side at first and then only later maturing into distinctive types". Yoder is eager to build on on earlier ethnomusicological research which shows the transfer of the 18th century British evangelical song from New England to the "Southern Uplands" - Kentucky, Tennessee, Western Virginia and then to the "Negro, who made the spiritual, once borrowed, into something expressive of his own soul". He wants to stake out Pennsylvania as having a central place in the early development of this uniquely American and vastly influential musical form.

Yoder digs with relish through early 1800s accounts of Pennsylvania "camp- meeting" evangelical Methodist services which were attended by dirt poor white rural folk and "Negroes" - who were "free" unlike their Southern cousins. Being free didn't mean you weren't segregated from the whites by partitions or required to sit in designated areas behind the preacher man. But it did mean that you could drown the whites out with ecstatic shouts and chorusing over the service, and keep up the "tide of enthusiasm" after the service had ended, long into the night after the whites had crawled back into their tents and were trying to sleep.

The early American spiritual completely shocked British and European visitors, with its gushing emotionalism, crude folk-song repetitions, spontaneous made-up bits of verse, shouting, convulsions and general "hysteria". A British visitor to the Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia in 1817 noted that both the "African" and white parishioners suffered from the same "extreme degree of fanatical violence in their religious exercises". Despite the rich musical tradition generated by their black and white (Pennsylvania Dutch) "religious folk-song" singing ancestors, official historians from the United Brethren, Evangelical and Church of God had (at least up to the 1960s) completely ignored its legacy. Largely because all those violations of established hymn structures, and ignorance of nicely arranged middle-class organ music (largely the preserve of urban churches), meant the spiritual was identified as the religious outpouring of the poorest of the poor, the illiterate, the barely shod. And it was damned by association.

Its no wonder then that America was the birthplace of that dirty irreverent shaking to music and spirit called rock and roll, and soul.

And how American that the rock and roll spirit (and the entertainment industry that latched onto it) would eventually reverse church history. The spiritual legacy in America has secured the quivering, fire-breathing, shouting and singing teleevangelist his mass appeal, and handed to his corporate religious empire the keys to the New Jerusalem. His rival churches, following more conservative forms of worship, watch as their parishioners (and economic base) slowly die off and are not replaced.

I was really warming to Yoder's history last Wednesday morning and flicking away the yellowed Carnegie library book pages with some enthusiasm when The Devil (in the form of one of the senior production assistants) marched around the ringside and shouted at everyone that all our books were now confiscated - we had to take all our reading material and put it away from set, in our 'dressing rooms' or wherever. Why? Someone said they thought that when viewing one of the rushes yesterday, the director noticed that one of the extras - instead of jumping up and down wildly and passionately imploring Tommy to beat the *** out of his opponent- was still sitting, head buried in a tome.

Whatever the reason, little did they know how this removal of our only perk would encourage many of us to openly rebel, only days later.

The Black Friday Showdown

Books I would have read by now and could write about had they not been confiscated:

. Sheila Rowbothom's "A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States"
."Coal Dust on the Fiddle: Songs and Stories of the Bituminous Industry in Pennsylvania" by George Korson
."The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality" by Brian Greene

But instead, for the rest of Wednesday and all Thursday, myself and all the other extras sat through 14-15 hours worth of boxing takes with nothing to distract us except our cell phones (on silent) and each other. There was even a rumor going around that none of us were allowed to stretch out on the stadium seats anymore for the occasional back-pain relief, as this potentially delayed getting people in position for new audience hysteria scenes. A lot of us, deeply fatigued already although it was only week two of a four week shoot, slumped submissively in our seats and blinked blankly up into the bright stadium lights for hours on end, like cows in a holding pen.

My new buddy Dan, a 50 year old long-haired heavy metal fan, who dropped me home of an evening in his crimson Chevy touring van (complete with stuffed devil doll passengers and a silver skull-head gear stick), showed a spectacular deterioration in motivation over this two week period, ending in the Black Friday Showdown.

On the first day of shooting, Dan was sitting a few seats from me and was taking every opportunity to jump up and run to the ringside and punch his arms in the air, for hours on end. In between takes, he would chat to me and any other woman who would talk to him. He told me repeatedly how much fun he was having.

By day three, he was not jumping up to the front quite as much. But he was still "having fun". By day six, he was not jumping up at all.

The following week, Dan was given a couple of days off by one of the PAs. But by Thursday, he was no longer even concerned about sitting in his usual seat, or wearing the Tap-Out sweatshirt handed out by the costume department. With nothing to do now for hours on end, he took to just finding corners of the stadium and just sitting there, no sign of air punching anymore.

On Friday, part-time extras poured in excitedly to make up extra bulk for wide-shot crowd scenes. Our numbers swelled to 700-800. Glamor-struck part-timers fussed with make-up, giggled with girlfriends and gingerly stepped in stilettos all over the half-sleeping full-timers who were, as usual, passed out all over the floor of the 'dressing room'.

Black Friday commenced at 6.30 am.

By 6.30 pm there was still no sign of a wrap. Agitated murmurings began, particularly from the part-timers who had expected their working day to end after 12 hours. Not a chance.

By 9.30pm, the groaning and complaining in the room was widespread and audible. All the extras had had enough. Some of us craving dinner and a decent sleep tried to escape up the stadium stairs to the exit signs, but we were trapped. Most of us relied on the shuttle to take us back to the Strip district car-park - the PAs glared at us and told us to "get back in there", the shoot was "nowhere near done", the shuttles weren't going anywhere. We retreated back in. A lot of the part-timers were in a state of shock - some of them just ran away, others staggered back in incredulously.

It was almost 11.00pm, and everyone was still in their seats, exhorted to cheer for Tommy, as usual. This was the final straw for Dan. He slouched deeper into his seat, with no intention to punch the air, clap or show any fake excitement whatsoever. One of the PAs noticed him and the following exchange ensued:

PA: Hey, you have to move over here with the rest of the crowd.
Dan: I'm not going anywhere.
PA: You have to do what I say.
Dan: I don't take any f** orders from anyone
PA: Man, you are SACKED.
Dan: You can't sack me COS I ALREADY QUIT!!!

Dan then stormed out of the stadium; but kindly waited for me on the steps of the Petersen Center, to give me a final lift home after the shuttle dropped us off in the Strip district somewhere close to midnight. We cruised home to the overwrought metal strains of Ronnie James Dio reminding men that women always let them down. As I staggered up the back steps to the apartment, my body implored me not to go in the next day (please oh please) or indeed any of the days after that.

Mid-morning Saturday found me horizontal in my bed and not on the floor of the 'dressing room'. Although I knew I was letting Nick down, I just couldn't be a full-time extra on his film anymore, I just didn't have the true grit needed to make the grade. I too could not be sacked because I had quit.

Working on the Warrior movie

by Nicole Skeltys

My life as an extra on an action movie ( so far)

Although I haven't actually met Nick Nolte yet, or for that matter even clapped eyes on him, I now feel closer to Nick than any other Hollywood actor I've never met. And thats all of them.

I'm working as an extra on Nick's latest movie Warrior. This is apparently Nick Nolte's third movie in Pittsburgh, after Lorenzo's Oil and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

I don't think the latter flick ever made it to Australian cinemas, or maybe it did and I just didn't have the insight two years ago to realize my destiny was one day going to be profoundly bound up with this wonderful town. And thus I may have passed it over in favor of spending another $7.00 on hiring out another tranche of Classic Albums DVDs from the local VideoEzy. This series, which was popular in Australia and the UK, documents the making of no less than 32 "classic" albums from Elvis Presley's Elvis Presley (1956) through to Nirvana's Nevermind (1991). The episodes I have seen in this series have always swept me away, jellyfish-like, into a sea of yearning to produce such an historic artifact myself - a feat I did indeed try to pull off with my Melbourne psychedelic country band Dust's last album Songs (2007). Recorded on no budget in my backyard shed, using scratched up old Neil Young vinyl as audio engineering reference material, the album features great dollops of hopeless nostalgic aspiration wedged into every note. But the sad fact is, the conditions of production - both economic (ie the pop music industry) and cultural (the way people think about and relate to music) - have changed so much since any of the "classic albums" were produced, that the day of the popularly acclaimed '"classic album" is long gone. I'd put Radiohead's landmark Kid A (2000) as the last one to reach out to a respectable sized audience, but really great, passionate, innovative music is simply not allowed out of its niche markets anymore, internet or otherwise, to penetrate the consciousness of the average Jo(eline).

But I digress.

Nolte plays an ex-Vietnam vet. retired mill worker and recovering alcoholic named Paddy, who raised his boys - Tommy (Tom Hardy) and Brendan (Joel Edgerton) as competitive wrestlers. To cut a not very long story even shorter, due to twists of fate and fortune, both sons end up having to fight each other for high stakes ($5m): at Sparta, a 16-man, single-elimination Mixed Marshall Arts (MMA) tournament set in Atlantic City but being staged at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh with real fighters as well as stunt doubles.

The cast also includes Jennifer Morrison ("Star Trek," "House") as Tess, and local pro wrestler Kurt Angle as a Russian named Koba.

I'm a full-time member of 'Sparta Core', which is the 190 strong bunch of extras who turn up to fill up the seats around the ringside each day. I was not chosen to be a 'specialty' extra, which means posing as a security guard, or photographer, or journalist, or paramedic, or part of a fighter posse. I missed out on being special in large part because the only special roles for women at an event like Sparta are as ring-girls (a position apparently nabbed by a Pitt-Greensburg junior who auditioned in a bright orange bikini) and "hot babes" who get to wear the slinkiest of frocks in the front rows and shiver uncontrollably for hours in the stadium air-conditioning.

My role is the humblest of all, that of 'general fan', and my job is simply to sit with other general fans, scream my head off, clap wildly and jump up and down at intervals indicated by one of the many production assistants (PAs) through their megaphones. I am required to perform thus for a minimum of 12 hours each day, 6 days a week. After a week on the job, its become clear that the average working day is in fact 15 hours, and that doesn't include the getting up (often as early as 5.00am) getting there and getting back, which adds another couple of hours.

By the end of the first week, I had figured out that the most useful attributes for an extra were as follows:

• no central nervous system
• a gold fish-like brain (ie finding the same actions interesting, no matter how often repeated)
• no skeletal structure
• lots of friends with nothing better to do than be an extra too
• a goat-like digestive system (ie can successfully ingest and excrete trash at any hour)

I lacked all of the above. For the first week, I sat for hours on end, watching the same fight scenes set up and re-shot repeatedly, my eyelids constantly dragged shut by the gravity produced by pre-dawn awakenings. Unlike many of my fellow general fans (about a third of whom seemed to be U of Pitt students on summer break), I had no buddies to insult or share drinking stories with. I found myself on more than one occasion placed next to a genuine wannabe champion boxer, one of whom explained to me that he was prepared to suffer brain damage and slurred speech as long as "the money made it worthwhile".

Like the frail elderly confined to nursing homes, the only bodily pleasure I had to look forward to each day was food break ( 'breakfast' at 7.00, 'lunch' at 3.00, dinner non-existent). But what was on offer was largely junk food, and by day three the periodic dietary assault of snack bars, white bread sandwiches, chips, cookies and popcorn produced an immense gridlock in my innards which by late afternoon left me prone on the backrows of the stadium seating, like a beached pufferfish. This would occasionally attract the disapproval of the production assistants (PAs) who would eventually notice me and urge me to get up, get jiggy with it, and show my enthusiasm for the champs on set.

I must note for the record though, that the whole vibe of the shoot is very friendly and the PAs are doing an incredible job. They are at the shoot before the extras turn up and they are there after we leave, thus providing them with probably no more than four hours sleep a night. How they manage to keep concentrating and being polite I don't know, I would be as friendly as a wounded bull if I was them.

There are upsides to this job though. In less than a week, in the waiting around that comprises most of an extra's day, I have mowed my way through the following books:

• a fat biography of Einstein by Walter Isaacson (lovely, recommended)
• a history of Pennsylvanian music written in the '30s (dull)
• a history of bluegrass music in New York and Eastern Pennsylvania (the bits about the banjo were good)
• The Road, a post-apocalyptic novel by Cormac McCarthy - converted to a movie, some of which was shot in Pittsburgh, due for release in October (depressing)
• Panic - edited by Michael Lewis, a collection of essays about the last 20 years of periodic hysteria in financial markets, starting with Black October (1987) and ending with the sub-prime mortgage global wipe-out. If you ever suspected Wall St and dependent financial markets to be no more rational or socially useful than teens on crack then this book will make you feel vindicated. No less for the fact that most of its contributors are either trader insiders, internationally respected economics policy advisors, or long-standing financial rag/ NY times journalists. Not just highly recommended, I'd say put this book in the 'compulsory reading if you want to know what the *** is going on with your economy and lets face it, your own future livelihood' category.

I took today off to arm-wrestle with the Department of Social Security (6 months since I first applied, but still no sign of that magic SS number so I can actually get paid), to work with Tanya and Scott finishing off our drafts of the Grandview Scenic Byway Park's promotional films (due for screening at all the outdoor cinemas in Pittsburgh's parks throughout summer), and to cook up three days worth of fresh vegetable based dishes to take with me to the Warrior shoot. I have realised that by simply bringing my own food and avoiding everything on offer except apples and peanuts, my quality of life on this movie shoot is greatly improved. I am even starting to get used to it and even enjoy it - a meditative-like state of zonked can be achieved for days on end without having to pay expensive retreat fees to stay at a Western version of a Tibetan gompa.

And my latest book to read, in amongst all the testosterone charged grunts, thumps and whumps and constant exhortations to reverential cheering? Sheila Rowbothom's A Century of Women: A History of Women in Britain and the United States. Somehow, I don't see this tome being made into an action -packed genre movie anytime soon:-)

Pittsburgh - The Hawaii of the Mid-Atlantic

by Nicole Skeltys

Hot tubs and city parks

After only three days back in Pittsburgh, I found myself sitting in an frothy outdoor hot-tub on Mt Washington, framed by stunning views of the city. Bedecked with lurid plastic leis, with a handsome young gentleman by my side, I quaffed a strawberry daiquiri and cracked jokes to camera about how Pittsburgh was internationally famous as the Hawaii of the Mid-Atlantic. You would not normally find this activity listed in a job description. Unless, of course, you wrote that job description yourself. In November last year, Tanya and I were commissioned to write and shoot a short series of films for the Mt Washington Community Development Corporation promoting their new regional park - the Grandview Scenic Byway Park. I managed to include a hot-tub scene in the storyboard, which goes to show anything is possible when you put your mind to it.

While the journey from Melbourne to Pittsburgh was an aerial marathon that left my body clock thoroughly mangled, it was nevertheless a relief to get back to the USA and put my antipodean hospital holiday behind me. MOFO (the giant uterine fibroid that took me medical hostage when I got to Australia) seems to be finally giving up its civil war on my nether regions. And Pittsburgh now looks glorious in full spring mode, worthy of a Shakespearean sonnet - complete with waving daffodils, courting red robins (one of whom has made a nest on our kitchen door) and streets splashed with blossoming pear trees and redbuds.

Tanya and I are now working hard to finish off these films in time for our deadline of 1 June: they will be screened at the outdoor cinema events held throughout summer in the city's parks. Scott has also joined us to help with shooting and animations, and we now even have a (working) name for our little multimedia team: Cheek Productions.

PeduTube

The week after I got back, I decided to get involved with local politics and try and make a civic contribution to my adopted home. I had spent years involved with the Green Party in Australia, and felt the need to get involved with environmental and social justice campaigning again. I volunteered to help out with the Peduto primaries campaign and, later in the year, do what I can to help his reelection to Council. Quite apart from being a 100% nice guy, Bill has an impressive track record on local green issues, a completely sensible approach to cleaning up local government finances and rorts, and an impeccable record on helping disadvantaged constituents.

Last weekend, I found myself stuffing envelopes in the Peduto headquarters in Shadyside, a mail-out for a fundraising night at the Center for the Arts. Thus began my education in local American politics, Pennsylvania style. I learnt, for example, that voters are almost drowned with democratic options - here you can vote directly for a mess of positions that in Australia are neatly taken care of by bureaucratic and political appointments: Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Coronor, School Director, District Judge, to name but a few (but not dog-catcher - I checked). Apparently voter turn out for these elections is "dismal". I have a long way to go to figure out how this town ticks politically, but at least I have made a start.

Peduto, on the other hand, running for the position of Councilman for City Council District 8, has so much popular support that his one Democrat rival for the position recently dropped out of the primaries race. The campaign is now about voter eduction and empowerment, or "building the base" as Bill calls it.

After envelope stuffing, I continued to further the cause of base building by heading down to Cappys, a bar on Walnut St, Shadyside, where once a month Bill hosts a night of VJing where he plays people's favorite YouTube clips for a $5 donation. All proceeds go to a changing range of worthy community groups. Last Saturday, Friends of the Urban Forest were the beneficiaries. This group encourages the planting and protection of Pittsburgh's city trees. I got chatting to some of the members while Cappys filled up and images of giant Cookie Monsters with death metal voices and two year old evangelical preachers flickered over the big screens. To my delight, at one point someone requested an old Parliament-Funkadelic clip, and I got to revel again in seeing an aging Garry "Starchild" Shider prance around stage wearing nothing but diapers.

As midnight came and went, the urban foresters decided to drop into Lawrenceville's once a year 'Art All Night' celebration and I tagged along - particularly pleased to get a lift back to my suburb given I had otherwise no idea how I was going to get home. 'Art All Night' proved impressive - hundreds of artworks by local established and amateur artists arranged in large warehouse spaces not far from the riverside. Despite the wee hours, the event was still packed and garage bands thrashed away. At one of the community tables, I noticed a considerable number of brochures for local neighborhood community and arts groups (such as Construction Junction which recyles old refrigerators by encouraging artists to decorate them then turn them into arthouse kegs!) The diversity indicated Pittsburgh's capacity for healthy grassroots innovation, albeit mostly at the single issue and small scale art enterprise level.

After about an hour, I left the still milling art crowd and started to make my way home down Butler St. As I shuffled along I ruminated on something one of the urban foresters had told me, that "there wasn't much eco-raver or hippy culture in Pittsburgh", which I was disappointed (although not really surprised) to hear. My Melbourne group household would often refer to ourselves as 'hippies', despite the fact I don't think any of us actually own a tie-dyed T-shirt (although Roland did look really good in a large fluffy pink top hat I once found in an op shop). The term 'hippy' functioned as a kind of shorthand for our identification with greenie/ collectivist values and lifestyles (not to mention old school techno parties in forest settings).

But just when I was having my "I miss hippies" moment of sadness, a bike wobbled up beside me, and I caught a flash of rainbow tie-dyed T-shirt, sandles, long hair and scraggy beard. "Hey, Thunderbirds is a great bar! Why don't you come inside and let me buy you a drink?". I found myself staring at what looked to me like a bonafide aging alternative lifestyler sporting a big grin, so I said "Sure" and we headed into the bar. As Ed introduced himself and bought me a screwdriver, I fairly quickly realised that looks can be deceptive: Ed quickly explained he had been "drinking all day", happily lived off "hamburgers, they're the best food you could possibly want" and, despite my probing, seemed to have no idea about local organic farms or ecology groups. Nevertheless it was fun to chew the (factory farmed) fat for a while. However, Ed eventually brought the conversation around to how "hot" Australian women were and that I was no exception. That was my cue to thank Ed for his generosity and continue my shuffle down home to 45th St under the milky warm night sky.

My future role in a martial arts action flick

Once my jetlag wore off, I started to apply my newly cleared mind in earnest to the fairly substantial problem of how I was going to survive for the duration of my three year artists' work visa in America. My nights were now (once again) punctuated with brainstorming sessions with Tanya, exploring ideas for creative enterprises that might bring us in some cash.

Late one restless night late last week, I had a Eureka moment and hatched an idea for a music project that might - just might - attract the interest of a few local sponsors. It was a project I would feel completely passionate about and had the potential to bring a lot of joy to people involved with it, myself included. It was my Latest Big Idea. I hastily scribbled out the proposal, crunched the numbers and nervously sent a draft off to Charlie for comment.

A couple of days later I fired off an email applying for the job of an extra in a Nick Nolte martial arts action movie called Warrior which is about to commence shooting in Pittsburgh. Within minutes, the phone rang and one of the casting crew was putting my name down on the full-time extras list, requiring my presence on set for 5-6 days a week for 4 weeks starting 11 May. While the pay is minimal and the hours long, nevertheless its an income, and the opportunity to see how a medium budget (by American standards) mainstream film is slammed together.

And who knows - maybe I will be 'discovered' and I will find myself playing character female bit parts in future B-grade movies (chain-smoking school canteen mom, hot roller derby coach, love-lorn ferris wheel assistant at a Pennsylvania county fair) or best of all, both Tanya and I could star as The Jilted Brides, a faded glamor girl duo playing dim old Southern saloons in a cool remake of Easy Rider from a girl's perspective directed by Gillian Armstrong and starring the ghost of Heath Ledger.

Well, at least I can dream:-)